There’s something about the writing that just hit me at all the right places. My funny bones, my melancholy bones, and all the bones I have that possibly evoke feelings. I went into the book not expecting it to be funny. And yet. It’s sooo so funny! I can’t believe I would say that one of the funniest moment in the book was two old men trying to catch a train. I was giggling like crazy. I so loved the main character, an old Jewish man called Leo Gursky, who is the ultimate comic of a man.

But there were sad moments in between the chuckles. Loss, regrets, loneliness, wonders of what could have been. I was laughing one minute and crying the next one. Laugh, cry, laugh, cry, sometimes I did both at the same time because the moments switched so quickly. Isn’t that what life is all about? An insane mix of tragedy and comedy?

Then there’s Alma, a 14 year-old girl who is named after every girl in a book her father gave her called The History of Love. Yes, there’s the actual book called The History of Love in the book, which is the string that will tie all the interweaving stories together. This book within the book, I so adored with the same love I have for our The History of Love.

“Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.” ~p16

I mean how can you not love it from the snippet above?

Then let me go back to it being funny. I have this preconception that women writers can’t be fun. They could be serious, reserved, intelligent, subtle, daring, romantic, air-headed, anything but fun. But Nicole Krauss is soo fun here, without ever being crude. Leo on describing his best friend Bruno:

“The soft down of your white hair lightly playing about your scalp like a half-blown dandelion. Many times, Bruno, I have been tempted to blow on your head and make a wish.” ~ p8

I realized that I haven’t given much of the synopsis, but really it’s one of those books that is very hard to summarize and much better to enter knowing very little. It was a delight from beginning to the end. Having read a couple of thoughts, I found some people had problem with the ending, but for me it’s just perfect, perfect, perfect. I cannot imagine it to turn any other way. I was absolutely satisfied at the last page, re-read the last few pages multiple times, and would’ve cried buckets if I wasn’t on the train full of people.

I wondered if Krauss purposely chose an old man and a little girl as the main characters of the book. Both are not in the prime of their age and the simplicity of the language just fits so well. Even the simplicity of their thoughts and life. Untainted by the craziness reserved for young working people who think about everything else in the world but.

“Once Uncle Julian told me how the sculptor and painter Alberto Giacometti said that sometimes just to paint a head you have to give up the whole figure. To paint a leaf, you have to sacrifice the whole landscape. It might seem like you’re limiting yourself at first, but after a while you realize that having a quarter-of-an inch of something you have a better chance of holding on to a certain feeling of the universe than if you pretended to be doing the whole sky.

My mother did not choose a leaf or a head. She chose my father, and to hold on to a certain feeling, she sacrificed the world.” ~ Alma p69

I would recommend it to anyone who has ever fallen in love, anyone who’s ever looking for something to ease the pain of the world, anyone who has lost and wonders what could’ve been. Don’t we all?

2005, 385 pp

First line
When they write my obituary.

Awards
Shortlisted for 2006 Orange Prize

Also reviewed by
kiss a cloud | things mean a lot | Vulpes Libris | Dreadlock Girl | One Literature Nut
Special thanks to Claire (of kiss a cloud) who encouraged me to bump this book up my pile when she knew I had it! What a nice surprise!

The Orange Prize for fiction has just released its longlist. I was excited to find that I have 2 of the books on the list!

Both books were obtained last year (I wrote about them here and here).

I was interested by Secret Son because it’s Moroccan (author and setting) and The White Woman on the Green Bicycle for its Trinidad origin (again, author and setting).

Jackie and Simon both made their predictions and wrote more about the other books. I haven’t heard of the rest of the others, apart from these two and This is How by M. J. Hyland (who is sort of Australian and whose book was featured on First Tuesday Book Club last year and has piqued my interest since then), The Help by Kathryn Stockett (which I have planned to read) and A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore (whose short story I read a while back and liked). Oh and of course the big names like Wolf Hall, The Little Stranger, and The Lacuna, but they don’t need more mentioning, do they?

Which book piques your interest? Which one do you plan to read?

(left is my advanced copy and right is the published cover)

Burnt Shadows is a pot mix of everything. Setting in various countries, check. People from different culture who speak different languages, check. Mix them up. Mix them up as much as possible, check. A German has relationship with a Japanese in Japan. The Japanese goes to India and has a relationship with an Indian. They are later forced to live in Pakistan. The sister of the German married an English then move to live in India. Their son is somehow later an American. The Japanese and the Indian has a son who is born a Pakistani who later works for the CIA together with the American.

The novel intends to connect the historical moments of bombing in Nagasaki, the war in India which divided Pakistan, and September 11. Hence the mix of everybody from all these places, told through three generations. Does it work? Err.. I wish it did. Too many things were just too hard to believe. The characters seem to talk and act in the same way and that couldn’t work with all these people from completely different background. A Japanese acts like a Pakistani and a Pakistani acts like an American.

Another major element that kept distracting me throughout the book is a couple of characters who are able to speak 4-5 languages. Being a bilingual who is learning a third language, I know how hard it is to pass as a local no matter how fluent your second language is. The accent shows. A little off tune or pronunciation could easily set you apart from the native speakers.  There is this man who could pass as someone from the same country by just learning the language from a school bus driver. I had problem in believing any of that. He seems to have a superhuman ability to absorb languages and that’s kind of comical. Of course, with this superhuman ability he could go to work with the secret agents of arguably the most powerful country in the world. Just like James Bond.

Then he goes all the way to save a friend who he had a brief friendship with some twenty years ago (Oh yea he’s an Afghan, so that’s another nationality thrown in the mix for you). Risking his own life, his mother’s, and the daughter of a person he owes a lot to. Though some might find this action perversely heroic, I rolled my eyes and said Oh please. I just. Didn’t. Buy it. I found him an incredibly selfish character and completely had no sympathy for him.

I’m sure there are many more examples that nudged me here and there, but I read the book in quite long period of time on and off (at least a few months), so I may start forgetting details in the first parts.

The prose is written pretty well and I admit there were some great moments. But I dislike her style to lead us in believing one thing which ends up to be another. This is emphasized by the feeling of disorientation every time a new chapter begins. Why? I asked. Why disorient reader all the time? I felt like I never knew any of the characters well until the end of the book.

Burnt Shadows is shortlisted for 2009 Orange Prize. While I can somewhat understand why, the book generally left me a bit frustrated. Other people seem to like it more than me so please check the other reviews below for balance of opinions, though the general consensus sounds like the novel is too ambitious and therefore may have failed in deliverance.

2009, 369 pp

Awards
Shortlisted for 2009 Orange Prize for Fiction

First line
Later, the one who survives will remember that day as grey, but on the morning of 9 August itself both the man from Berlin, Konrad Weiss, and the schoolteacher, Hiroko Tanaka, step out of their houses and notice the perfect blueness of the sky, into which white smoke blooms from the chimneys of the munitions factories.

Last line
Outside, at least, the world went on.

Quotes

“I love that about the Americans — the way they see certain kinds of craziness as signs of character.” ~ p62

“Heaven lies at the feet of the mother…” ~ p284 (I knew this quote since I was small. Never thought that I would find it in an English novel. It seems to be an Islamic quote.)

“She felt about people who believed in the morality of their nations exactly as she felt about those who believed in religion: it was baffling, it seemed to defy all reason, and yet she would never be the one to attempt to wrestle the comfort of illusory order away from someone else.” ~ p330

“War is like disease. Until you’ve had it you don’t know it. But no. That’s a bad comparison. At least with disease everyone thinks it might happen to them one day. You have a pain here, swelling there, a cold which stays and stays. You start to think maybe this is something really bad. But war — countries like yours they always fight wars, but always somewhere else. It’s why you fight more wars than anyone else; because you understand war least of all.” ~ p345, an Afghan to an American

Also reviewed by

Farm Lane Books Blog | BookNAround | As Usual, I Need More Bookshelves | The Burton Review | APOOO Bookclub | Bibliophile by the Sea | Raging Bibliomania | The Mookse and the Gripse | Bailey’s and Books

You wouldn’t realize it at the beginning though, because Kambili is so reserved and so in awe of her father, that as the narrator, she doesn’t tell you the story as it is. It feels like she tries to hide the fact that her father isn’t the perfect guy she desperately believes and wants him to be. That’s probably why for the first half of the book, I felt the story was almost static. It was a fine family story, but I wasn’t sure where it’s gonna go.

It peaks in the middle of the book when something terrible happens to Kambili and it is a revelation to everyone. And by everyone, I mean Kambili, her family, and us readers. At this point we’re definitely sure what’s going on and it is not right. That’s when the pace starts to pick up and the storyline runs with full force.

As central characters, apart from Kambili’s immediate family: Jaja her older brother, Papa and Mama, there are Aunty Ifeoma and her three children, and Papa-Nnukwu (Papa and Aunty Ifeoma’s father, Kambili’s grandfather). They play a big part in showing Kambili and Jaja the real world, the other world, just a different world with the one they’ve been living.

I often found myself wanting to shake Kambili to open her eyes, to stop yearning for approvals from her father, to see things as they are. On the other hand, I pity her and probably understand in some ways. Fortunately her character is developing throughout the book and we are left with hopes in the end. For me it doesn’t end up bleak. It ends okay.

The mood and atmosphere of the book reminds me of The Color Purple. Somehow when I started reading I had the impression that there would be politics involved. There are some, but really, it’s a story about family and religion. I love the writing. It’s very accessible and it captures the innocence of a confined 15 year-old.

2003, 302 pp

Awards
2005 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize – Best First Book
Shortlisted for 2004 Orange Prize for Fiction

First line
Things started to fall apart at home when my brother, Jaja, did not go to communion and Papa flung his heavy missal across the room and broke the figurines on the etagere. (inspired by Adichie’s favorite author Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart)

Last line
The new rains will come down soon.

Quotes

“Papa spent some time describing hell, as if God did not know that the flames were eternal and raging and fierce.” ~ p61

“She said ‘teenagers’ as if she were not one, as if teenagers were a brand of people who by not listening to culturally conscious music, were a step beneath her. And she said ‘culturally conscious’ in the proud way that people say a word they never knew they would learn until they do.” ~ p118

Chimamanda Adichie’s Top Ten Favorite Books (I found at the end of this book):

1. Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe
2. Woman at Point Zero by Nawal El Saadawi
3. The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born by Ayi Kwei Armah
4. Efuru by Flora Nwapa
5. Reef by Romesh Gunesekera
6. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
7. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
8. Reading in the Dark by Seamus Deane (aren’t they Harry Potter’s friends? :P)
9. A Strange and Sublime Address by Amit Chaudhuri
10. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

If You Loved This, You Might Like … (also at the end of this book)

1. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
2. Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangeremgba
3. Joys of Motherhood by Buchi Emecheta
4. Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee
5. In the Heart of the Country by J. M. Coetzee
6. The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing
7. Annie John by Jamaica Kincaid
8. A Grain of Wheat by Ngugi wa Thiong’o
9. Petals of Blood by Ngugi wa Thiong’o

Also reviewed by

1morechapter | caribousmom | The Hidden Side of Leaf | Book Haven | A Striped Armchair | Farm Lane Books Blog | Books for Breakfast | Joystory | Book Maven’s Blog | Out of the Blue | She Treads Softly | Everything Distils Into Reading | things mean a lot

This book is shortlisted for the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction 2007, interestingly. I was flipping through the first few pages at Borders and was intrigued, so I borrowed the book not long after from the library. As funny and interesting the main character’s thoughts were, I quickly got annoyed with the deliberate writing of bad English. Especially with the omission of particles, which seems to be the foremost and most common method to convey how Chinese people speaking broken English. It just seems hard to believe that one could say florescent and wisteria but also say ‘I sad’, know the meaning of words like paradox and fatalism, but say ‘womans’ until the very end of book. It just gives me the impression that someone deliberately sprinkled mistakes everywhere to make it sound like natural bad English.

The story is about Z, a young girl from China who arrives in London to spend a year learning English, during which time she meets a far older Englishman, falls in love, then culture revelation and clash start to unfold.

SPOILER WARNING

I hate the part when she travels around Europe, meeting random guys and sleeping naked next to their beds. She is either very naive/stupid, or very wild. Since the hell when could you just follow random strangers in faraway country to their hotel rooms or houses and take off your bloody clothes? I mean, she’s not very good in English, doesn’t make her stupid in everything in life! And don’t even get me started on the unprotected sex. Does she even know the concept of cheating?

end of spoiler

Anyway, despite some of my complaints, the book has funny points and interesting point of views.

Pages: 354
Rating: 3 out of 5 [Okay]
Readable. Not bad for cultural clash topic and insight into Chinese culture.

First line

Now.

Last line

The rain was ceaseless, covering the whole forest, the whole mountain, and the whole land.

Quotes

“‘Love’, this English word: like other English words it has tense. ‘Loved’ or ‘will love’ or ‘have loved’. All these specific tenses mean Love is time-limited thing. Not infinite. It only exist in particular period of time. In Chinese, Love is ‘愛’ (ai). It has no tense. No past and future. Love in Chinese means a being, a situation, a circumstance. Love is existence, holding past and future. If our love existed in Chinese tense, then it will last for ever. It will be infinite.” ~Z, p301

I picked up the book from Moonriver Cafe (Singapore Official Bookcrossing Zone). It was registered by birmingham-rose in UK, and has got 9 journalers across 5 countries since.

This is the type of book I read because everybody reads it. Quite unexpectedly though, I enjoyed it. It’s quite an easy reading. I’m not sure if it’s really as good as everybody else claims it to be though. I mean, for me it’s definitely not 5 stars, or even 4. Maybe 3.5. But lately I’ve been stingy with my stars, so there you go.

From the back cover:
My name is Salmon, like the fish: first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973. My murderer was a man from our neighborhood. My mother liked his border flowers, and my father talked to him once about fertiliser.

The story is taken from Susie’s point of view, from heaven. This way she can see everybody and everything. Her family, father, mother, younger sister, and younger brother, her friends, her highschool crush, and, of course, her murderer. I kinda like a lot of the characters in the story, with the exception of her mom. Her selfish selfish mom. I wouldn’t spoil it for you, so go ahead and read it.

I like the description of heaven in the book. How people have different heaven, and how you need to let go of the world if you want to be really in heaven. How you share your heaven with other people, only if you want the same things in your heaven. It makes me almost believe that, yeah maybe heaven IS like that. A good chance that it could be that.

I think the fact that the story is told by the murdered girl in heaven is the key that makes the book interesting. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be that profound.

Ratings: 3.5 out of 5
Easy enjoyable reading. I like Sebold’s style of writing. I would say it’s high 3.5, but I can’t give it 4. At the end of the day, it just didn’t make me go WOW. I don’t know why. Maybe there are some less than satisfying elements in the story. *spoiler alert* (highlight to see) Like the end of the murderer. I guess it would be more satisfying if they caught him at the end for a closure. But on the other hand, it’s a good representation of life. Sometimes you just won’t know everything. You just have to go on with life. I like how the family can go through their misery at the end, even without a proper ‘closure’. It’s life. You survive or you die.

Awards
Longlisted for 2003 Orange Prize for Fiction

This book is my first bookring that I got. It had 10 journalers and 26 journals before I got it. A well traveled book :). You can see it here and join the ring if you want. I’m sending this book to the next person in Australia.

Got it from: followdream, US (bookring)
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 (boy do I became harsher these days..)

“The tale of one motherless daughter’s discovery of what family really means- and of the strange and wondrous places we find love.” ~ The Washington Post (back cover)

It’s a sweet short book. Like strawberry short cake. Like eating fairy floss alone in the middle of beautiful park. There’s just the right balance of sadness and happiness. Sure there were moments a bit too corny for me, but the main character is 14 years old girl, what do you expect ;). I admit though there were many moments too that brought me to the verge of tears. It was both funny and melancholy book I’d say :).

A few elements felt very close to home. Including the “We can’t be together now, but one day, after I’ve gone away and become somebody, I’m gonna find you, and we’ll be together then” promise, complete with dogtag exchanging hands. Seriously, I’m asking you, does this kind of thing happen to everybody? Now I feel that it does happen to all teenagers around the world LOL.

Do you know what’s the key to writing a good fiction? Pick a few key points that can stick on readers’ mind. Anything that’s outlandish, or even ordinary but with a bit of twist. Like from this book, I could easily remember the kneeling on grits, pink house, wailing wall, and the black Madonna (Mary). (You gotta read the book to understand what they are :)

So see, even maybe after I forget about the how the girl found her mother, I would probably still remember the one that had the world’s burden and sadness like it was her own and her wailing wall where she stored all her griefs away.

Memorable Quotes

“Every little thing wants to be loved.” ~ August, pg 92

“The hardest thing on earth is choosing what matters.” ~ August, pg 147

“It’s something everybody wants- for someone to see the hurt done to them and set it down like it matters.” ~ Lily, pg 185

“When it’s time to die, go ahead and die, and when it’s time to live, live. Don’t sort-of-maybe live, but live like you’re going all out, like you’re not afraid.” ~ May and August, pg 211

“People, in general, would rather die than forgive. It’s that hard.” ~ Lily, pg 277

“In a weird way I must have loved my little collection of hurts and wounds. They provided me with some real nice sympathy, with the feeling I was exceptional.” ~ Lily, pg 278

“[Love] is the only purpose grand enough for a human life. Not just to love- but to persist in love.” ~ August, pg 289

“If you need something from somebody, always give that person a way to hand it to you.” ~ August, pg 298

Awards
Longlisted for 2002 Orange Prize for Fiction

I struggled to go through the first chapter or so, because it’s a bit confusing at first. The book is written as if it’s a big clipping of many events, with exact dates, whose point of view (Henry/Clare), and how old they are at that time. The book follows Clare’s timeline (thus the title).

I put this book down for about 2 months, because I caught up in other reading. After I started again, and up about a quarter, I couldn’t stop reading. It’s captivating, enthrilling, and totally unpredictable. I couldn’t guess what’s going to happen next.

In a few sentences, you may think the spirit of the story is somewhat closer to science fiction, but it’s really not. The time traveling is “just” the vessel. The topics covered are much wider, at times I felt things were a bit rushed. The author has so much to tell and yet so few pages.

At some parts, you want to be them. To be engaged in such romantic and unique accidents of nature. At other parts, you may cry. Because when reality eats you coldly, unavoidably, it’s so excruciating that you wish things were not true. It’s story about love and loss, hopes and hopelessness, miracle and reality, longing, uncontrollable divine forces, also real life problems of marriage, abandonment, parenthood, secrets, and cruelty of the world.

One of the finest book I have ever read. Very carefully constructed page by page. And I can say you may never find any book like this again. Truly rare. One of a kind.

~ Finished it (roughly) on 8 September 2005

Quotes

“I hate to be where she is not, when she is not. And yet, I am always going, and she cannot follow.” ~ Henry

Award
Longlisted for 2004 Orange Prize for Fiction

This is the 3rd book from Amy Tan, her first book that I read. It’s about Olivia, a half Chinese-American, that meets her half sister from China, Kwan.

A lot of stuff about ghosts, reincarnation, and basically all Chinese superstitions. There are two parallel stories going on, this life and previous life. Both’s equally interesting :)

What amazes me still is how the description of scene in the climax of story in China is so powerful. I had the picture so solid in my mind that even a year later, when I read The Opposite of Fate, in which Amy Tan explains that the scene is real, I knew exactly which one she means. Characters and plots are often strong in stories. But scenery? That’s pretty rare to me!

It’s a small village hidden in deep inland China, with path going up to a big old gate. Behind the cliff is a valley full of big rocks and thousands of caves all over the side of the mountains. That’s my attempt to describe it =D

~ Finished it (roughly) on 30 January 2004

Award
Shortlisted for 1996 Orange Prize for Fiction ]]> http://www.meexia.com/bookie/2007/08/the-hundred-secret-senses-by-amy-tan/feed/ 0 http://www.meexia.com/bookie/2007/08/the-bonesetters-daughter-by-amy-tan/ http://www.meexia.com/bookie/2007/08/the-bonesetters-daughter-by-amy-tan/#comments Tue, 31 Jul 2007 14:00:03 +0000 mee http://www.meexia.com/bookie/?p=1156 This is the 4th book from Amy Tan. When I read it, the cover is different with the one I put here (found it in Amazon). Interestingly, I’m now in the middle of reading her 5th book (The Opposite of Fate) in which I found out that this cover is actually the photograph of her grandmother.

It starts from a girl that was raised by a nanny with scarred face, who unbeknown to her is her own mother, who bore her outside marriage and therefore casted away by her family. Only after the nanny killed herself because all disrespect that she felt from her own daughter, that she knew who she really was. This haunts her for long long years, even after she has her own daughter.

This is a story about grandmother, mother, and daughter. How past guilts and pain are brought over from generation to generation.

When I first read the book, I couldn’t even pronounce bonesetter. Apparently, it’s a totally chinese thing. A different name for a bone doctor. :) As weird as the title, I found the story is extra-ordinary.

~ Finished it (roughly) on 25 February 2004

Quotes
“I was like a turtle lying on its back, struggling to know why the world was upside down.”

Awards
Longlisted for 2001 Orange Prize for Fiction